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Testing and debugging account for more than half of the software development costs and are becoming serious bottlenecks in the software development process.
The problem is intensified in embedded systems due to the tight coupling between software and its hardware platform; hence, embedded software is often tested too late and too little and in an ad-hoc and unstructured manner. Concurrency faults are particularly difficult to find and are extremely difficult to reproduce. Due to their critical application areas, faults in embedded systems may turn into failures with very severe consequences.

A promising solution to testing issues lies in automated Model-Based Testing (MBT) processes, which provide a structured approach to testing from high-level behavioral models. Our vision is that MBT is instrumental in mechanizing and integrating the test process in the development cycle. Moreover, embedded software is particularly suitable for MBT, because operational (behavioral and reactive) aspects play a prominent role in its correctness. Our research agenda is to provide practical industrial strength MBT solutions, that can deal, in particular, with modern embedded systems.